


thrilled by the still of your hand

by strawberrv



Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Gen, Identity Issues, M/M, Nail Polish, non-au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-15
Updated: 2019-08-15
Packaged: 2020-09-01 10:23:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20256568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strawberrv/pseuds/strawberrv
Summary: his index finger is nearly frozen, all warmth sucked out of it by whatever chemicals are in nail polish, but it’s kind of cool. he keeps catching it in his periphery while he finishes getting ready for bed, while he curls up on a kitchen stool and eats his honey chips, watching a video about deep sea fish on his phone. the blackness glimmers under the dim light.





	thrilled by the still of your hand

**Author's Note:**

> hi uh..........  
been kinda going thru it lol i know i have so many nct wips ppl are looking forward to!! i'm sorry i'll get to them soon as fuck!  
this is random and weird and eh ! probably not my best but i hope anyone who reads this still enjoys!  
title from no plan by hozier

changkyun is so, so restless. it’s like he’s missing something. there’s an answer that he doesn’t know. one of the problems that’s not in the back of the book, only the teacher’s guide.

when he starts painting his nails, it’s just — casual. 

he’s at the counter of the corner store by the dorm, and the nail polish rack sits to his left, next to the name-embossed keychains. and the cashier’s scanning his honey chips, and it’s nothing special, it’s just that his fingers twitch. he has his wallet in his right hand, getting ready to pull his card out with his left, but it doesn’t happen. his fingers twitch. so he looks to his left, gaze slipping over the tiny, glossy bottles sitting in prim rows on the wire rack. and before he can think too much about it, he shakes out his hand and grabs a bottle of black polish, sliding it surreptitiously onto the counter next to his bottle of iced tea.

the cashier, a tired looking girl with ruler-straight hair falling down her shoulders, only blinks at the added product, and scans it after the iced tea.

“your total comes to 14,312 won,” she says, punching some buttons on the register before turning the card reader to face him.

“would you like your receipt?”

“sure,” changkyun says, reflexively, but when she hands it over the smooth paper it’s heavy in his hand. incriminating; he crumples it and shoves it into his back pocket. he pulls his mask up and his hat down, completely tweaking the whole walk back, handles of the plastic bag digging into his knuckles.

he’s quiet when he gets back, but he’s always quiet, and only minhyuk and hyungwon are still awake anyway, so it doesn’t even matter. nothing about this even matters — not that there’s anything even _about_ it. god, he’s going to get a headache, he can feel it, a pang right above his ears. he tosses the chips in the cupboard, the tea on the kitchen table, and takes the nail polish with him to the bathroom. he does his skincare first, trying to lull himself back into the comfort of routine, trying to be casual, not that he should even have to try. his eye twitches in the mirror, and he pushes his ring finger into the spot, just below his lashline. he blinks at himself, mouth slightly open, breathless for absolutely no good reason, baby hairs sticking to his forehead with water. he’s still got cleansing foam in his eyebrows, because he always forgets to rinse his eyebrows. he catches his breath, running his wet index fingers backwards through his brow hairs until the suds are gone. he uses one of kihyun’s absurdly fluffy towels, and he’ll be pissed about it in the morning, so that makes changkyun feel a little better.

he blows out a breath and unscrews the nail polish. he holds the tiny brush in front of his eyes, the actual substance viscous and opaque, impossibly shiny as it pools on the bristles. he sets the bottle down on the counter, lowering himself to his knees so he can set his hand flat on the counter. he examines his nails, not long but not bitten down like minhyuk’s or nicely shaped like kihyun’s. pretty normal, is what he’d say. good, nice, normal nails. great. he switches hands with the brush, and then switches back to his left hand, because his right one is shaking. he glances at himself in the mirror again, hair still pushed back by one of hoseok’s headbands.

then, he presses the brush to the cuticle on his right index finger, and there’s no going back. he mentally berates himself for not getting any acetone, like, he’s pretty sure nail polish won’t come off with soap? right? maybe he’ll try out kihyun’s home-brewed cleaning solution and save himself 1,000 won. oh well, he sure is in it now. he uses a square of toilet paper to catch the excess creeping under his nail, then waits a minute, then goes back in with a second coat. it’s a mistake, because the first layer hasn’t dried completely and the polish clumps and leaves his nail all bumpy and kind of gross looking, but he can’t tell when he looks in the mirror, so it’s fine. he puts the cap back on, then puts the bottle in the medicine cabinet. then he puts the bottle under the sink. 

his index finger is nearly frozen, all warmth sucked out of it by whatever chemicals are in nail polish, but it’s kind of cool. he keeps catching it in his periphery while he finishes getting ready for bed, while he curls up on a kitchen stool and eats his honey chips, watching a video about deep sea fish on his phone. the blackness glimmers under the dim light, and it’s always been easier for changkyun to pick out what he _doesn’t_ like rather than what he does, but he decides, yeah. this is alright.

he almost thinks no one will notice the first day. he has a hoodie on, anyway, and the sleeves are long enough that his hands are pretty much covered most of the time. he keeps holding his breath whenever anyone greets him, brushing shoulders in the narrow hall, but no one really looks. he supposes he doesn’t pay all that much attention to people’s hands, either, so. yeah. casual.

but, then, changkyun’s number one critic, yoo kihyun, gets back from the grocery store, and asks him to help put the stuff away. it’s ridiculous, because kihyun and only kihyun knows where everything goes, and will get unreasonably irritated if something is in the wrong spot later, so changkyun has to keep checking where most things go anyway, but that _also_ annoys kihyun (because changkyun not having a telepathic link with him is the greatest inconvenience of the fucking century), so the whole thing is tiresome and probably takes longer than if kihyun had just done it alone. so.

changkyun thinks they’d probably be, like, legendary arch rivals in a parallel universe, or trying to kill each other, or something. but as it stands, changkyun asks where minhyuk’s chamomile goes, and kihyun exhales sharply through his equally sharp nose, and just holds his hand out impatiently to take the box from changkyun. their hands brush, and kihyun instinctively looks down, and of course it’s changkyun’s right hand, and kihyun stops, blinks, frowns.

“what’s on your hand?” he asks, getting down from the apple box he uses to reach the high shelves, but not before slipping the box of tea neatly into its place by the extra bottle of thyme. 

he holds out his hand again, brows pushed together and eyes focused, prepared to examine and either condemn or approve. changkyun rolls his eyes but carefully places his fingers in the palm of kihyun’s hand, which is warm, and kind of swollen, no doubt from gripping the handle of the shopping cart like it owed him money. kihyun prods changkyun’s fingers apart with his other hand, lifting up the index and gazing critically over the bad paint job.

“you did this?” he asks, eyes darting briefly to changkyun’s.

“yeah,” changkyun says, not very casual, hot-faced.

kihyun says, “hmm,” and then drops his hand, turning back to face the last bag of groceries, crossing his arms.

“you know they’ll take it off for the next schedule?”

changkyun says, “yeah,” again, and swallows all the spit in his mouth so his tongue goes unpleasantly dry. kihyun nods, more to himself than anything, and then bends down to put the potatoes in the basket under the sink. changkyun judges him for keeping potatoes under sink, and then wanders back to his room to play overwatch until he gets tired.

kihyun’s right, of course, the make-up artist catches the obsidian gleam on his finger and gives him a funny look, digging through her bag until she comes up with a yellow bottle of 100% acetone, which melts the polish right off his nail, which feels strange and squeaky and naked the whole rest of the day.

so when he gets home, he does his skincare routine, and then repaints it, along with his thumb, this time. it’s a slightly better job, if still smudged around the edges and messy on his cuticles, but whatever. at least he knows he doesn’t like _not_ doing this, which is somehow way easier for him to process than having to think to himself that he likes painting his nails. something about that is just weird.

it’s not like an _oh my god Gender_ thing, nor is it an _oh my god Gay_ thing; it’s not really a thing at all. that’s what makes the whole deal harder. he can’t explain it to himself, so how is he supposed to explain it to everyone else?

he can tell they’re waiting, minhyuk and jooheon and hoseok in particular, with baited breath, waiting for him to — to _come out_ or _cry_ or something equally dramatic. hyunwoo and hyungwon seemingly could not give less of a shit, leaving him be, and kihyun just gives him that _look_ sometimes, but kihyun has been giving changkyun that _look_ since no mercy, so changkyun can’t tell if the meaning has changed.

the rest of them, though. jooheon will eye his nails and then pretend like he didn’t; keeps suggesting that they have writing sessions together, which is so painfully transparent because they’ve been writing separately for years. as if changkyun’s going to write an entire verse about the pain he’s holding inside or whatever with jooheon lurking over his shoulder. hoseok just openly gapes, and casts him curious looks, and minhyuk makes an effort to hold his hands and pepper them with kisses which is. weird. changkyun’s already exhausted by the whole thing, regretting his entire life, and it’s only been a week.

he’s like, pickling. whatever.

like, they train and write and meet with executives and shit, and changkyun is painting his nails, getting acetone’d, painting them back, painting them black, press the brush down in flat, broad strokes, and shine and glimmer. watch how they shine, sparkle and sparkle in any kind of light. he’s pickled in the brine of everyone’s stares. they say that if you think everyone’s looking at you, they probably aren’t.

but _someone’s_ definitely looking at him.

and most of the time, it’s kihyun.

he _looks,_ sourpussed out and almost always cranky, and changkyun would pay any fee to know what he’s thinking, to catch his drift. sometimes he clicks his tongue or rolls his eyes, and changkyun still hasn’t been able to crack those codes. kihyun is just frustrating like that. but, changkyun supposes, he’s frustrating too, and that’s probably why they’ll never _really_ get along, because there’s only so much room for that.

whatever. changkyun paints two, four, five, seven, nine, wipes it all off and just paints his thumb one day, and kihyun’s gaze is narrowing, until one friday when he finishes scrubbing the sink for the fourth time and arrives in changkyun’s doorway with a bottle of acetone.

oh.

here it is.

the part where the tension snaps, rising action to climax, maybe they’ll fight, or kiss; changkyun is always wondering how kihyun’s teeth would feel on his tongue, and if he favors the left or right to tilt his head. not that he’s caught in unrequited love, though how miserable that would be, to fall for yoo kihyun of all people, but it’s just something he wonders.

changkyun doesn’t look up from his book, but kihyun’s standing in the doorway, hip cocked, arms supporting the acetone as well as tissues and q-tips, and a teeny tiny brush, and the bottle of nail polish. he sighs, and then power-walks into changkyun’s room and sits at the foot of his bed, and changkyun puts his book down, because he’s finished the chapter.

kihyun says, “hands please,” and holds out his own, wiggling his fingers impatiently. changkyun sighs, sits up, and obeys, because that’s really the easiest thing when it comes to kihyun.

but there’s this moment, where changkyun’s fingers land in between kihyun’s life-line and head-line, in the valley of his palm where the tendons of his fingers hold taught beneath the surface, and it’s quiet. like all the noise has been sucked from the world, and changkyun’s heart beats, silently.

and then kihyun clicks his tongue, eyes sharp over the black nails, and gets out a q-tip to set on his knee while he pours a capful of acetone to dip it in. then, very gently, very carefully, he begins to clean up changkyun’s cuticles.

the acetone burns in his nose, and kihyun’s gaze burns on his hands, but the touch is cool. kihyun is dry and cool and his hands are nimble if calloused, the kind of callous on the last knuckle of his right middle finger that you get from holding a pencil or chopsticks too tightly. one on the bottom knuckle of his index finger, from pressing a sponge down flat to tile, and scrubbing and scrubbing.

this is thing, is kihyun is always so rough, holding much too tight and breathing shallowly, like every fucking thing in his hands is a rabid dog, and he’s ready to pull the leash taught. and so, that’s how changkyun thought _he_ would feel if kihyun touched him. like some dog that kihyun regrets adopting, disobedient and yappy and annoying, stupid and beneath him. 

but here he is, and kihyun is, yes, a little rough, meticulous and tetchy and perpetually judgmental, but he’s not _mean._ he doesn’t squeeze, and he doesn’t say anything, and he doesn’t look at changkyun like he’s expecting something, and he runs the q-tip so softly under changkyun’s nails that it nearly tickles. 

and it’s so fucking quiet.

changkyun’s nails look better than they ever have, clean edges and touched up, smoothly applied nail polish gleaming happily on his fingers.

and as kihyun gets up, stretching his legs out and grumbling about a foot cramp and individually picking up used q-tips from changkyun’s comforter, changkyun breathes. it smells like chemicals in his room, now, but when kihyun shuts the door behind him, changkyun leans forward, and there are atoms in the air that kihyun left behind that smell just like him, like soap and water and mint, sort of. 

changkyun looks at his nails, and no, he doesn’t have the answer. it’s not that he _wants_ for anything. it's not that there's a _problem,_ but kihyun didn’t ask him if he did, didn't ask if there was, didn’t scold him for not knowing.

he only painted changkyun’s nails.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading <3
> 
> find me on twt  
[main](http://twitter.com/lookslikerain) [fic acc](http://twitter.com/rouxberrv)


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